If imitation is a sincere form of flattery, here is my one-time attempt to imitate my friend JK’s terrifically useful mini-digest on Ukraine. Sent via email a few times a week, containing “information you are not likely to read/hear in the Western/U.S. media,” its author has identified the need for someone to do something similar for news on the war on China the U.S. is planning aka the Obama-Biden pivot to Asia.
I’m unqualified to take on this project because I don’t read Chinese or Japanese beyond the kindergarten level or any other East Asian languages. But, in the spirit of JK’s heroic communication efforts around the U.S. war on Russia, here goes.
(Note from LS: MUST WATCH! Discusses how the U.S. with full Japanese cooperation has turned Okinawa into a war base and an obvious target during any conflict with China.)
(Note from LS: MUST READ. It’s a year old and long, but well worth your time to understand reality behind headlines like “China, Russia partner up against West at Olympics summit” by Reuters or “Russia and China unveil a pact against the West” in the New Yorker.)
Why export the misery to Guam? The indigenous population of Okinawa understands all too well what it’s like to live under Japanese imperialism. And taxpayers in Japan are by no means on board with ramping up military spending and abandoning Article 9 as the U.S. is demanding.
Instead, those who consume corporate media should expect to read more ranting from psychopaths like U.S. Air Force general Michael Minihan. He was in the news this week due to a memo (that the Pentagon disavowed, for what that’s worth) urging preparations for war with China which he predicted will be underway by 2025.
He ordered his underlings to practice shooting targets in the head to prepare.
He’s been quoted as believing that,
“[W]hen you can kill your enemy, every part of your life is better. Your food tastes better. Your marriage is stronger.”
No comment on what we’re all imagining about Minihan’s marriage.
Meanwhile another ex-Marine, weapons inspector Scott Ritter, shared his examination of the shift in U.S./NATO policy toward east Asia and also the “war-fighting domain” of outer space.
A recent statement by National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) head Bill Nelson that the US was in a space race with China, when combined with recent moves by both the US and China to militarize space, could send the US on a policy trajectory that transforms established policy regarding space-based activities as being exclusively exploration-driven in nature, to one where conquest and domination become the dominating factors.
Why do I pay attention to these “coulds” when the clear and present danger of Ukraine escalating into a nuclear confrontation grows daily?
Because weakening Russia and overthrowing Putin is the first stage of the neocon plan to take out China as the U.S.’s only feasible economic competitor.
But the sanctions that were supposed to cripple Russia’s economy have instead strengthened it, and boomeranged on the economies of the U.S. and NATO nations.
Early indications are that sanctions on China are having a similar effect: weakening the dollar, and pushing the targeted nation toward more cooperation with others and diversification of its industrial capacity.
[Dutch tech manufacturer] ASML CEO Peter Wennink previously told CNBC that China accounted for around 15 percent of the company’s sales in 2022.
Wennink has said that any restrictions are unlikely to prevent China from building its own versions of the machines eventually. “If they cannot get those machines, they will develop them themselves,” Wennink told Bloomberg. “That will take time, but ultimately they will get there.”
On the Japanese side, the restrictions are expected to impact companies such as Nikon and Tokyo Electron.
As its old ally Germany has suffered under U.S. leadership from helping to conduct war on Russia via Ukraine, I think it’s reasonable to expect Japan to suffer from helping its old enemy conduct a proxy war on China via Taiwan.
Certainly Australians as traditional allies of the U.S. military empire are increasingly concerned about being targeted as a consequence of hosting bases and spying outposts on their soil, and of their economy unraveling if their extensive trade with China is disrupted. And some observers have speculated that neighboring New Zealand saw the recent resignation of PM Jacinda Ardern because she had lost the battle for Kiwis to remain neutral and nuclear-free.
In the U.S. we have half a million people unhoused and at risk of freezing to death this winter. We have 1 in 5 children growing up impoverished and hungry, and the federal government tells us there is no money for universal health care, student loan forgiveness, or to house and feed the people. Yet, at $858 billion for 2023, the military budget is at it highest point ever, and ominously increasing every year.
Historically, wars have caused untold suffering for populations who had little to no interest in pursuing them. War profiteers hijacked their governments and raked in profits while their people starved and died.
